Day 7, Thank Heaven

Today has been quite an eventful day. It's day 7 of my 6th Whole 30, so one week in and filling incredible. It's amazing how almost instantly, my body feels so much stronger a day or two into Whole 30. I don't feed my body much crap when I'm not on Whole 30, but I can tell a drastic difference when I'm 100% strict with myself.

A week or so ago a friend of mine posted on facebook that they were selling their indoor Kinetic bike trainer for $150 bucks. I thought longingly about the trainer for a long time, only to find out that it had been sold.  As luck would have it (for me!) the sell fell through and it was once again up for grabs. So Kathy, being the amazing wife she is, told me we could think about it. 

Well, Kath happened to be reading an article online last night about how to be your best triathlete self, and the article stressed the importance of being strong in the bike portion. Kath instantly looked over at me and said, "You should see if that bike trainer is available" 

24 hours later I drove away with the trainer! 

Also today I had my weekly physical therapy appointment. Today was the day I have been waiting for since June, the anti gravity treadmill day. Since I am getting so much closer to my triathlon, my physical therapist is beginning to test my strength with running. 

I arrived at P.T. and first he did some grafting on my leg and ankle, where they take coco butter and rub it on your leg and use metal tools to "rub ya down"-the purpose being that the irritation it causes promotes platletes in  your blood to rush to that area and begin repairing the joints, tendons and muscles in the irritated area. This in turns promotes healing of the part of your body that is injured.

Next we headed over to the anti gravity treadmill. Which looks like this:

Photo courtesy of Kearny Hub

You put on a special pari of running shorts that have a zipper at the top and then you step into the center of the treadmill and they zip you in. The machine is turned on and it calibrates to your weight and begins filling with air. You feel your body weight begin to rise and it takes as much of the weight of your body off your ankles/feet as the P.T. sets it to. It was a really cool feeling. Then, sweet victory, I got to run!

I haven't run since June and today, on the Alter G machine I ran for 20 minutes without stopping, no pain and it was just like I had never taken a day off of running. Tomorrow, Monday and Wednesday my physical therapist is going to have me come back and do the alter g machine again and again to see how repeated running sessions feel on my ankle. With any luck I could be running across the finish line at my Triathlon, instead of walking. 

After 2 1/2 hours of P.T is was dinner time, and tonights dinner was delicious Paleo Orange Chicken, Broccoli and green onions. 

After dinner, I decided to hit up REI, as I need to get my hands on a good running belt for my race number. REI is quite literally my favorite place to shop, and I joke the the outdoors, training and fitness is my religion, so going to REI is going to church. REI Church.

My Salt Lake REI, I looked like a creeper taking this photo tonight.

I did't have any luck with race belts, but they did have training axles for my indoor trainer. You replace your rear axle with the training one to avoid scuffing yours up. So armed with my training axle in hand I decided to make one last stop at Salt Lake Running Company, to see if they had the running belts I was looking for. 

....Because the rest of the story is so good, it deserves it's own post. See my next post for what happened next.